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Design Deep Dive: Amberlodge

Well would you look at that, it’s next week! Feels like it was just last week.  Because it was.  Time is a river that has flooded its banks, and we will all drown in its bitter, brackish tide.  Uh I mean leeeeeeet’s talk about Amberlodge hahahaha.

A recent thought that entered my head was that the lodge has been mothballed, so there’s some basic starting trees, storage, and equipment, and several facedown rooms and groves that can reveal new tapped trees when explored or storage rooms or machinery when excavated.  Are there a limited number of rooms? Is it a fixed or variable setup of face-down cards? Decks? I feel this overpowering urge to take the cards I have made, matching/version/compatibility be damned, get a pen, pencil, and several blanks, and just start playing the game into existence, scribbling on cards as they would come into play.  Do I want achievements? Could they grant a separate special ubiquitous currency that can be spent universally across all the different systems? Could a forest deck include not just maples and walnuts but berry thickets and beehives? Could discovery achievements trigger new recipes?

Maybe I just do need to try mocking out a game, to really identify the pieces that still need to be designed, but also to leave room for inspiration to jump in.  It might be more enjoyable than following my meticulously plotted out to-do list, and if not, well, the list isn’t going anywhere, and I can start at the top knowing I gave spontaneity a try.  I’m gonna commit to trying it this week or weekend: I just gotta clear a surface, put up a post-it note reminding myself not to slow down, and go for it.

Now, even if that works, there’s still a long way to go.  This game is at least a minor order of complexity more involved than Fantasy GM Squared, or Birch Crown.  Both of those are complete if not final prototypes, but they also model fewer systems.  Perhaps once I do start going through my punchlist for the different systems, it would behoove me not to do all the producers and then all the processors and then all the recipes, but rather to focus on the bare minimum to illustrate basic proof of concept, what the flow of play would be, what setup would look like, and what the mathematical foundation for the game’s economies and currencies are.

Looking at it that way, it’s even more appealing to try to play a game where I build it as I go.  In order to build some momentum, I need to establish a core gameplay loop.  All the variety, all the tension, can be layered on, and therefore more easily stripped away if not workable.  Like expansions.  Yes.

Okay, so.  I think I’ve got my plan for this week and next.  Find the core game.  Build the core game.  Expand the core game, one category at a time.  Neat! Now I just have to… execute... 

I’ll let you know how that goes.  Til next time!



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